


Alraune

by gubby



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fantasy AU, Human/Monster Romance, Mandrake!Reader, Monster Biology, Monster Hunter AU, Monster Hunter!Mando, Monsters, Slow Burn, implication of human consumption, light gore, reader is a quarry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:39:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gubby/pseuds/gubby
Summary: As highly skilled as bounty hunters get, The Mandalorian often finds himself on contract to hunt monsters for their parts. Some are more sentient than others, and against his better judgement, he wants to find out just how aware you are.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Finding

The Mandalorian was a man who carried out what he agreed, no matter what. His reputation as a bounty hunter was stringent upon this code of honor, as was his creed. Bounty hunting was not a career in which one could afford to be emotional, or to take exception. 

Regrettably, a not insignificant amount of bounties were put forth by magicians of all kinds. The most potent ingredients are the rarest, and found in settings not often charitable to the studying kind. So the Mandalorian found himself to be something of a monster hunter. 

Most were little more than beasts, base and instinctual, and his killing was as much self defense as it was hunting. Others were living, thinking to a degree, but could feel no pain. The most difficult ones were those sentient that feared death, and had enough ability to voice this to him. It was the code of the guild to forget all information on the transaction once completed, and this served him well to sleep at night. Were he to dwell on the lives that ended, their parts harvested and crammed into flasks and jars, suspended from twine to dry, ground by mortar and pestle into a fine powder, it would be his own ruin. He knew this well. 

This bounty had landed him in a swamp. Acrid, filthy, but not altogether too dangerous. But it was a nightmare to navigate, full of changing paths and fae gateways for the unwary. It had not been specified whether or not the quarry was to be delivered alive or dead, only that it be fresh. 

It was a species the Mandalorian admittedly knew little of. Scarcely had he ever heard of them, much less encountered one. He’d heard tales of dangerous, poisonous masses of plant fiber. Some said they swallowed their prey whole, others said they shrieked until all within a mile radius were driven to madness. Some said their parentless, vile origins created life without a soul or love. Some said it made them desperate for it. 

Alraune. Mandrake. A plant born from the essence of a hanged man meeting the fertile earth. 

An unfortunate truth to the Mandalorian’s line of work was that the worse things smelled, often the closer he was to his mark. And even through his helmet, it smelled foul. Of rotting meat with a tinge of sickly sweetness. It was no surprise, either. Carrion littered the area, but there was a certain honeyed scent that came with the smell of death. It felt like it clung to his nose, wet his lungs, created a gritty burn in his throat that wouldn’t cease. 

Until he came upon a bulb. Unmistakably monstrous, green and leafy, but with white petals that blushed a brilliant pink at their tips. Sealed like a tulip before sunrise. The whole thing came up to his shoulders. Without the filter cloth of his helmet, and a lot of perseverance, he would’ve fainted from the smell as soon as he’d gotten close. That awful smell of perfumed, decaying flesh. The Mandalorian unsheathed his knife. The client hadn’t offered much information, but he did mention that what he needed would be at the center. 

He was tense, alert as he’d ever been. The money from this bounty was enough to sponsor many foundlings. And while the current task was supremely unpleasant, it hadn’t been overly dangerous thus far. Not enough to warrant the vast reward. He nicked a petal with his blade, watching intently as the slice began to weep a milky sap, which likely had its own use as an ingredient. But it didn’t seem corrosive or poisonous, not yet. He stuck the blade in one of the seams of the plant firmly, having to squat and use his knees to rip the knife upward due to the toughness of the fiber. He wiped his blade on some nearby grass before sheathing it, digging his fingers into the wound and using it as leverage to peel back the plant in chunks, all while the smell grew stronger. 

He cautiously looked inside, one of his boots planted on the side of the bulb in case he needed to push off into a sprint. 

Inside was, surprise, another mass of leaves, but one that moved, as if it breathed. Tracing the figure beneath it with his hand, gently, he found that there was a body. Somewhat small, but human-shaped. He moved some of the monstera-like leaves to see something of a head of hair, shiny but tangled, like corn silk. It was like a girl. Skin, the color of a parsnip, and some of the blemishes of one. Old blood around her face. He guessed this is where the carcasses had come from. 

He didn’t like to subdue sleeping targets, but… better safe than sorry.


	2. Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You help out Mando when he gets hurt

You awoke with the setting of the afternoon sun, over someone’s shoulder, hands bound tightly with cords, runic letters burnt into them.

You looked back in the direction of the inner swamp, contemplating whether or not you would ask the hunter if you could say goodbye. You decided against it. You could not see his face, but you decided you didn’t want him to be more disgusted with you than he already was.

“Who are you?” you ask, voice still weak with sleep. The hunter says nothing.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Will I ever see this place again?”

He stops in his tracks for a few moments.

“Probably not,” he answers, less than sure, but probably more sure than you’ve ever been about anything.

* * *

Three days later, and the hunter has still not spoken to you for more than a minute in total. You were allowed, once out of the swamp, to walk on your own two feet, though you remained bound at the wrists. You had tried chewing at the rope a few times, but it did nothing more than burn your tongue. It had turned out the canyon pass he had travelled through to get to your swamp collapsed, meaning the journey to deliver you would be much longer. And while you were bound, the Mandalorian more or less had to take care of you.

Initially, the smell of carrion followed you. After a couple of days of eating the cooked kills of the hunter, accompanied with some fruits on occasion, you smelled sweet and somewhat smokey. Sometimes, when you were asleep and he’d take his helmet off to eat, the scent would make his head spin. Where before it had been nausea inducing, now there was something enticing to it.

By the end of the week, he drew his enchanted blade, and you didn’t flinch away. He hadn’t intended to scare you, but he expected you to be… startled. He wondered if you’d accepted whatever fate you’d concluded to be yours, or if your species just had woefully bad survival instincts. He cut through the runic binds. Besides testing some of his things with your teeth, you hadn’t given him much trouble. Things would be faster this way.

The Mandalorian, of course, never initiated conversation. He seldom saw the use in talking to bounties, for obvious reasons. But you had a way of confounding him to the point of curiosity with what conversations you attempted.

“Why don’t you take off your helmet? Are you light-sensitive? Physically defective?” You weren’t the most sensitive speaker, but it didn’t seem to come from ill-will. 

“It’s a part of my religion,” he stated simply. Your eyes drifted as your head tilted.

“What’s religion?”

The helmet hid his stunned expression well. It was strange in a way he wasn’t able to articulate. Strange that you knew light sensitivity, physical defects, but not religion. He supposed it was possible that there were still places within the continent that faith had yet to reach, in any form, but still highly unusual.

“It’s…. Well, they’re systems of belief people have.”

“What does yours believe in?”

“Warrior strength. Honor. Family.” He pointed to a pendant on your neck, a symbol in tarnished brass on a simple chain. He’d wondered about it in the back of his mind for days, and figured now was as good as time as any to ask. “What does that mean?”

“Oh. I don’t know,” you chirped “I was thinking of asking you.”

Strange again. You wore a poncho of leaves, all of your other clothing was similarly produced, the necklace being the only thing man-made on you. His better judgement told him to stop the questioning here, but some damnably curious part of him had to know.

“Where did you get it?”

“My… my father. It was his.”

Every answer raised more questions. Vegetables don’t have parents, harsh as that may sound. Had you meant… a gardener? Had you been adopted?

You yawned, wide like a cat, showing your serrated teeth. 

“Sleep? Ok?” You asked. He noticed that it was difficult for you to stay awake more than a few hours after sunset. The helmet tilted just slightly, an affirming nod in your direction. You laid down, little tendrilous roots from your skin growing and pushing into the soft soil beneath you. 

Come sunrise, you’d haul yourself up, leaving the little roots behind, still squirming. Gross.

* * *

The Mandalorian was coming to realize why the price on an alraune had been so high. There had been other travellers, mostly mages and alchemists, who’d stopped him in your travels. Some offered him a price, some tried to convince him that he didn’t have the knowledge to have you-- that something like  _ you _ belonged in the hands of a seasoned expert.

Others just tried to kill him for you.

Mandalorians didn’t use magic. They were about as far from magic-using as it got. They were followers of the forge, of physical combat, though this often necessitated ways of warding off magic from opponents. The Mandalorian hadn’t realized what a precious ingredient alraune were to mages and medicine makers.

The most recent in a long line of poachers fell dead, a talented sorcerer who’d had more than a few tricks up his sleeve. In return for his victory, The Mandalorian received a bleeding gash on his side that had begun to blacken, having been caused by a necrotic spell.

The journey was shaping up to be a lot longer than he’d intended. With the added length came dwindling supplies, including healing salves. And while he had  _ some _ left, it wasn’t high enough in quality or quantity for this. He laid on his uninjured side in the dirt, weighing his options, and wondering if you’d done the smart thing and run off.

“You are rotting? I can smell it.”

Apparently not.

“Yeah. You can eat me when I’m finished,” he grit out, the pain from the burning decay coming in flashes. When you kneel by his side, he wonders if you’re really going to do it. The Mandalorian muses about leaving you with instructions on how to get to his covert and return his beskar when he feels something warm and slimy drip onto his side. He focuses to find you biting your hand, using your serrated teeth to saw at the dense flesh of your palm. More of the fluid drips from your palm as you squeeze it over his wound like a lemon wedge, the opaque, rosy pink substance leaking into his wound.

Finally, you smear your hand over the gash, then rub your palm in the dirt to dry it. Something that would be terrible for him to do to a cut, but he supposes that for a vegetable, it’s probably fine. Suddenly, his side gets warmer.

No, it’s not just warm-- it fucking  _ burns _ . 

He growls and clutches his side, curling in on himself in exquisite pain. If your intention was to end his misery, he’d have rather rot to death than this. 

In a few minutes, which are so excruciating they feel like hours, pain begins to subside into a dull, throbbing ache. The Mandalorian is able to pull himself together and sit up to inspect his side. The black has been replaced with an angry pink, severely irritated, but not lethal. The wound itself still weeps little beads of blood in some places when he moves, but for the most part, it’s been clotted with an off-white foam. It’s probably helping him, and he won’t die now, but it looks fucking disgusting.

When he’s able to come back to his senses, he sees you poking around the corpse of the mage. Picking up and dropping his lifeless wrists. You bring his hand to your mouth and--

“Hey!” he shouts, and you drop it, looking up at him with dilated pupils from beneath your mess of hair.

“Don’t eat that. You don’t know where it’s been.”


End file.
